The Reviews Hub Executive Editor John McRoberts recently took time out with Help I Sexted My Boss presenters Jordan North and William Hanson as they prepare to embark on their first arena tour of their hit podcast. On the brink of stepping from theatres into vast venues filled with thousands, the pair reflected on friendship, class, creative partnership and the unlikely journey that has brought them here.
On the surface, William Hanson and Jordan North seem an unlikely pairing. They come, as they freely admit, “from two different classes completely”. They dress differently, move in different circles, and present very different versions of Britishness. And yet, over the years of recording their podcast and touring together, those differences have become less a divide and more a kind of running joke, the frame around a friendship built on shared humour.
“Jordan’s definitely relaxed me,” William reflects. “He’s made me less uptight. If people think I’m uptight now it gives you a rough idea of how it was years ago.” The admission lands lightly, but it reveals something genuine. Time spent together has softened him. Whatever the public imagines about their contrast, he insists, “we do have an awful lot in common, more than people would think.”
When pressed on what really connects them, Jordan pauses before landing somewhere unexpected. “We love 1970’s sitcoms.” William lights up immediately. “Yes. 70’s, 80’s, 90’s.” It is a shared cultural archive that binds them. Jordan can toss out a line from ’Allo ’Allo, Keeping Up Appearances, or Are You Being Served?, and while others might stare blankly, William will catch it instantly. “I could say a quote, and none of my friends will get it but William would,” Jordan says. That shorthand, that private recognition, is where much of their bond lives.
But it is not just nostalgia. It is tone. “We do have a similar sense of humour,” Jordan explains, “I think that’s what bonds us the most.” He admits he brings out “this little naughty, dark humour in William. He’s got a naughty sense of humour that people don’t know about.” William readily agrees. “Yes, I have quite a dark sense of humour as well.” Sometimes, he says, they find themselves laughing at something they “probably shouldn’t find funny”, but they make each other laugh anyway. For William, one of the quiet gifts of the podcast is simple. “I know that once a week at least, I get to hang out with him, so that’s really lovely.”
Despite their chemistry, they resist the romantic idea of creative turmoil. Asked whether they have ever “creatively banged heads”, Jordan laughs. “Have we fallen out, yeah?” William concedes, “Not often.” They have disagreements, like any close friends, and talk about them openly. But theatrically dramatic arguments are another matter. “I actually would love to say when we’re in rehearsals we have big slanging matches,” Jordan admits, “but we don’t really, do we?” William shakes his head. “No.” They joke about inventing one on the spot.
Instead, their creative process is disarmingly simple. “What we do is, we actually respect each other,” Jordan explains. “William will say like, I really want to do this and this is how I want to do it and deliver it, and then I’ll go, right I’ll be quiet, you tell me how you want to do this. And then I’ll say, I really want to do this, trust me with it, and then he’ll be quiet.” The result, he says, is that “we’re a good team, you and I.” William agrees. “Yeah.”
Much of their work circles around class, that persistent British obsession. William is pragmatic about it. “Class is always going to be an issue in Britain. It’s always going to be there because that’s just how Britain is wired.” The categories may shift and mobility may increase, but the fixation remains. “There’s no point pretending it’s not.” So rather than attempting to dismantle it, they lean into it. If humour allows them to “poke fun at the British character”, William says, “you should always laugh at yourself.”
Jordan adds nuance. Having grown up working class, he is wary of what he calls “subverted snobbery”, the reflex to label someone a “right posh snob”. William quickly interjects, “That’s still snobbery.” The exchange captures their dynamic perfectly, challenge and correction followed by shared understanding. “I think we prove that if we could get on,” Jordan reflects, “you could with someone from work that might be from a different background. So I like to think that we reflect that.”
They have never consciously set out to challenge stereotypes. “We’ve never thought about it,” Jordan admits. “It’s never been the purpose of an episode.” Yet he delights in the thought that one day a student might analyse them. “I’d love for someone to analyse this and do an essay or a report on it.” William smiles. “I’d read it.” Jordan recalls sitting through a two hour university lecture dissecting why we laugh. “I felt like just saying it’s ’cause it’s funny, it doesn’t matter, it’s not that deep.” Still, the idea of someone writing a thesis on them amuses him. “Go on, anyone who’s a student, write a thesis on us.”
The podcast has shifted how audiences see them and how they see themselves. William notes that television appearances were fleeting. “You can’t do anything in seven minutes,” he says. The podcast, by contrast, offers breathing room. On television, he explains, “it’s performative, you’re generally not relaxed.” On the podcast, it is simply “me talking to Jordan as if I would just talk to Jordan if there were no microphones.” It feels “much more intimate, a truer version of yourself.”
Jordan’s relationship with change is more complicated. “My worry is that people always jokingly say I’ve changed,” he confesses. “And that hurts, that cuts deep sometimes.” Success, London life, radio work, can look like transformation from the outside. “I still like to think I’m the same old me.” William offers a careful distinction. “Superficially” he has changed, “but deep down you’re the same.” Jordan nods. “Oh, okay. I get what you’re trying to say.”
Now their intimacy must stretch to fill arenas. The leap from microphones in a studio to 10,000 seats is daunting. “It’s a challenge,” Jordan says plainly. William reframes it. Live shows, whether in an arena or at the London Palladium, are ephemeral. “It is unique to that moment and that date and once the laugh is gone, it’s gone forever.” When thousands gather and “laugh together”, regardless of how many people there are, it “can be very intimate because it is a shared collective experience.”
If audiences leave with one thought, Jordan hopes it is simple. “I just want them to have a good night out.” He thinks about the babysitters booked, the trains, the hotels. “I just want people to come and have the best night out and that was worth every penny.” William echoes him. “Just what a good night we had and how fun it was.”
When they reflect on milestones, certain moments gleam. Walking on to the stage at the London Palladium remains surreal. So too does the night their show streamed into hundreds of cinemas. “We’re a podcast,” William marvels. “We just rabbit on, on a Tuesday. We’re not saving lives.” And yet messages from listeners tell another story, of grief eased, hospital stays endured, physiotherapy sessions accompanied by their voices. “That really genuinely means a lot,” Jordan says softly. William sums it up with characteristic restraint. “Just the fact that anyone listens is an honour.”
On tour, their differences surface again in small rituals. Jordan cannot travel without his neck pillow. “I used to see people get on an aeroplane with them and think that looks stupid. But now I can’t leave without it.” That, and pillow spray. William, predictably, packs a travel cafetière. “I cannot stand bad coffee.” He pre grinds beans at home. “Straight in the morning, coffee.” Jordan’s reaction is immediate. “That is such a good idea.”
In the end, their partnership rests not on grand statements about class or culture, but on something quieter. Shared references. Shared laughter. The willingness to say, when needed, “trust me with it.” Beneath the performance, beneath the arenas and analysis, they remain what they have always been. Two friends who make each other laugh, microphones or not.
Help I Sexted My Boss goes on an arena tour later this month with stops in Cardiff, London, Glasgow and Manchester : You can find more information and book tickets through the official Website
